LakeSafe Initiative - Every Lake, Every Life

06/03/2026

I don't usually post like this. But I couldn't stay quiet tonight.

In the past five days, three people impacted in the water. Two of those emergencies happened on the same evening, June 2nd, right here on our lakes.

A 22-year-old jumped into a reservoir to save three of his friends who were drowning. He was a strong swimmer. He saved all three. But his feet became entangled in something submerged beneath the water, and the current took him. He was 22 years old. Just graduated.

That same evening, a 19-year-old was pulled from Lake Washington near the Montlake Cut. Seattle Fire rescue swimmers brought him to shore. Critical condition.

And at Lake Sammamish State Park our lake, the park where families picnic and children play a man in his 30s was found facedown in the swimming area. Bystanders pulled him out and began CPR. Eastside Fire, Issaquah Police, and Bellevue Fire worked for 30 minutes to bring him back. A family member was standing at the water's edge watching the whole thing.

This is the first real weekend of summer. And people across our community are going to head to these same lakes this weekend - Lake Sammamish, Lake Washington, the Green River without knowing any of this happened.

The water is cold even when the air is warm. Many of our local beaches have no lifeguards on duty. And after last winter's floods, there are hidden hazards beneath the surface that weren't there last summer.

Wear a life jacket. Never swim alone. Stay in shallow areas. Tell someone where you'll be.

And please share this.

💙 Every Lake. Every Life.
🔗 lakesafeinitiative.org

—

06/03/2026

Thank you to every responder on scene Eastside Fire & Rescue, City of Issaquah - Government (Issaquah Police), and Bellevue (WA) Fire Department. Thirty minutes of CPR. You never stopped. That is what courage looks like.
Our hearts are with this man and his family right now.
This is exactly why awareness matters before anyone steps into the water. Cold water doesn't announce itself. It doesn't look dangerous on a hot day. And too often, there's no lifeguard, no signage, no warning until it's already too late.
Please share this post. This weekend, families across our region will head to these same lakes. Let's make sure they know.
Every Lake. Every Life. 💙 Refer resources: https://lakesafeinitiative.org/resources/

EF&R is on scene of a water rescue at Lake Sammamish State Park. One male swimmer in his 30’s was seen floating facedown in the swimming area near his inflatable water chair. Bystanders were able to pull him to shore and begin CPR. Rescue teams from EF&R, Issaquah Police Department and Bellevue (WA) Fire Department worked for 30 minutes to regain a shockable rhythm. The patient was transported to an area hospital. This is a reminder the waters at Lake Sammamish and all our area waters are chilly and often don’t have Lifeguards on duty. The weather is warming up but our local waters are dangerously cold.

06/03/2026

At Lake Sammamish State Park. Our lake.
A man in his 30s was found facedown in the water near his inflatable chair. Bystanders pulled him to shore and performed CPR. Rescue teams worked for 30 minutes to bring him back. He was rushed to the hospital in life-threatening condition. As of now, we don't know how he is doing.
This is the second water emergency in our region in 24 hours. A 19-year-old was pulled from Lake Washington near the Montlake Cut just the night before.
Three incidents in five days. Two of our lakes. One summer weekend barely begun.
The water is cold even when the sun feels warm. Lakes in our area often have no lifeguards on duty. And most people heading to the water this weekend have no idea what happened here this week.
Please share this post. That's all we're asking. Share it so someone who needed to see it does.
And if you're heading to the water wear your life jacket. Go with a buddy. Know the signs of cold water shock. Stay in shallow areas. Tell someone where you'll be.
We are thinking of this man and his family today. 💙
Every Lake. Every Life.

A man is in life-threatening condition after he was found facedown in Lake Sammamish and pulled to shore by witnesses, according to Eastside Fire.

06/02/2026

"Each child is learning to swim. Everyone is safe and happy. And enjoying this beautiful area."

Gurman Kaur and Tony Gomez Public Health - Seattle & King County closed the commitment round at LakeSafe Confluence 2026 on May 15 with those words. And in that one sentence, they captured the entire reason every partner in that room gave their Friday evening to stand at Lake Sammamish State Park and commit to something.

Not a policy target. Not a metric. A vision. Every child swimming. Every family safe. Every person getting to enjoy this extraordinary place we are lucky enough to call home.

King County Public Health's public Summer 2026 commitment:

✅ Continuing community education and prevention messaging across King County
✅ Ensuring communities are wearing life jackets wherever there is open water
✅ Making sure every child has the opportunity to learn how to swim
✅ Amplifying water safety through media outreach - TV stations, radio stations, and regional communications channels

Tony also gave a public shout-out to Washington State Parks & Recreation Commission for something that deserves to be said out loud and shared widely:

Washington State Parks is educating 40,000 students across Washington State on water safety this year. 40,000 students. That is the scale of what coordinated, partner-aligned prevention work produces when agencies and community organizations commit to it together. That number exists because of the kind of collaboration that Confluence 2026 was built to deepen.

Gurman and Tony brought the clinical evidence, the epidemiological data, the forty-two years of drowning case reviews, and the proof that King County went three consecutive years without a single child drowning between 2008 and 2011.

That commitment is now in motion. Every peak weekend this summer, LakeSafe and its partners will be at Lake Sammamish life jacket stations, safety education, community outreach working toward exactly the vision Gurman and Tony named at the microphone.

Thank you, Gurman and Tony for the data, for the partnership, for the vision, and for everything King County Public Health brings to this community. 💙

🔗 Full Confluence 2026 recap:
https://lakesafeinitiative.org/lakesafe-confluence-2026/

Every Lake. Every Life. 🌊

06/02/2026

"Our job is to pull down that financial barrier. We offer free swim lessons to any child that needs it."
Kelly Martin - Branch Executive, YMCA/Sammamish Community and Aquatic Center said that at LakeSafe Confluence 2026 on May 15. And then she told the room exactly what that commitment looks like in practice.

The Sammamish YMCA board has invested over $30,000 in water safety this summer. Not a pledge. Not a goal. A commitment already in motion with 20 kids already through the Safety Around Water program last month before Confluence even happened.

Here is what that investment means for our community this summer:
✅ Free swim lessons for every child who needs them - zero financial barrier, no exceptions
✅ Safety Around Water program - teaching kids how to recognize safe vs. unsafe water, whether they are at an aquatic center or out here at the lake. How do you read the water? What does unsafe look like? Throw, don't go.
✅ Free CPR classes for the community - because rescue readiness is prevention too
✅ Lifeguard hiring and swim evaluations - building the workforce that keeps our beaches safer
✅ Community partnerships with Seattle University and the YMCA's Kent location - expanding reach across the region

Kelly also said something that every adult in our community needs to hear:
"Even if you are an adult and you have not learned how to swim - please reach out to the Y. We can help you."

Not just children. Adults too. Because drowning does not check your age. And the YMCA's commitment is to every person in this community who needs the skill and has not yet had the opportunity to learn it.

If you know a child or an adult who needs swim lessons this summer, please share this post. The YMCA is ready. The program is funded. The only thing needed is for the right family to see this message.

Thank you, Kelly and thank you to the entire YMCA/Sammamish Community and Aquatic Center board, staff, and leadership for this extraordinary commitment. 💙

🔗 Free swim lessons - YMCA of Greater Seattle: https://www.seattleymca.org

🔗 Full Confluence 2026 recap: https://lakesafeinitiative.org/lakesafe-confluence-2026/

Every Lake. Every Life. 🌊

06/02/2026

"This is probably all of your park as much as it is our park."

Kevin Goodrich - Northwest Region Manager, Washington State Parks & Recreation Commission said that at LakeSafe Confluence 2026 on May 15. And in that one sentence, he captured everything that makes the LakeSafe and Washington State Parks partnership what it is.

Lake Sammamish State Park is one of the busiest state parks in Washington's entire system. It is where thousands of Eastside families gather every summer weekend. It is where two community members lost their lives last August. And it is where 19+ partner organizations came together on May 15 to publicly commit to making this summer safer than the last.

Washington State Parks was one of LakeSafe's very first partners showing up from the beginning, joining monthly meetings, and helping build the coalition that made Confluence 2026 possible.

Kevin, Suzanne, and Rick have been essential to everything LakeSafe has built at the lake.

And on May 15, Kevin stood at the microphone in the park he manages, in front of the community he serves and made Washington State Parks' public Summer 2026 commitment:

✅ Continuously improving signage and public communication across Lake Sammamish State Park
✅ Continuing as a core LakeSafe Initiative partner moving forward
✅ Promoting water safety through the Safe Boating Safety Program
✅ Providing life jackets through the park's loaner program alongside community donors
✅ Creating the safest possible recreational experience for every visitor — local and from afar

That commitment is already in motion. Every peak weekend this summer, LakeSafe and Washington State Parks will have a safety presence at Meadow Shelter life jacket stations, hazard awareness, and community education for every family that walks through.

To Kevin, Suzanne, Rick, and the entire Washington State Parks & Recreation Commission - thank you. For the partnership. For the park. For believing in this work from the very beginning. 💙

🔗 Full Confluence 2026 recap: https://lakesafeinitiative.org/lakesafe-confluence-2026/

Every Lake. Every Life. 🌊

05/29/2026

"Remain calm and call 911 right away."

That is the first thing Deputy Chief Pat Walker Eastside Fire & Rescue said at LakeSafe Confluence 2026 on May 15. And he said it before anything else because in a water emergency, those six words are the ones that matter most in the first thirty seconds.

Battalion Chief Ben Imboden joined with him one of EFR's on-scene incident commanders for large-scale water emergencies. Together they gave the room something that no safety brochure, no infographic, and no training video can fully replicate: the real picture of what happens in the three to ten minutes between when something goes wrong at the lake and when help actually arrives.

Pat's guidance was direct:
Call 911 immediately. Get the units moving. It is always better to turn responders around than to call too late.

Do not add to the incident. Civilian rescuers become second victims more often than most people realize pulled under by a panicking person, or overcome by cold water shock before they can reach anyone. The instinct to jump in is powerful. It is also dangerous.

Give good information. This is where Ben made the room stop.
He pointed at the wide green field at Lake Sammamish State Park and asked everyone to imagine it was the lake. "If I pull up and you say 'somebody drowned right over there' that dark lake is so cold and so dark. I have no idea where 'over there' is. If I point out to the middle of that field, that could be a radius of 15 feet or 15 yards. I need a landmark."

A white sign with two posts. A buoy. A dock. The peninsula across the water. The distance between where you are standing and where the person went under. Any landmark named clearly and specifically is the difference between a search and a rescue.

Ben's three-step guidance for the minutes before EFR arrives:
🆘 REACH - if the person is close enough, reach anything out to them. A stick, a pole, a life jacket, a towel. Anything they can grab.
🆘 THROW - throw anything that floats within reach of the person in distress.
🆘 DON'T GO - stay out of the water. Stay visible. Keep talking to the person. Give 911 everything you know.

EFR's public educator is also available to come out and speak with any community group about lake safety and can bring on-duty crews. All you have to do is contact their office. That offer stands for any organization, school, neighborhood group, or community event this summer.

Thank you, Deputy Chief Walker and Battalion Chief Imboden for showing up on May 15, for the partnership, and for giving every family in that room something they can actually use. 💙
🔗 Full Confluence 2026 recap: https://lakesafeinitiative.org/lakesafe-confluence-2026/

Every Lake. Every Life. 🌊

05/28/2026

"2008 to 2011 - Public Health - Seattle & King County went three years without a single child drowning. We know what's possible."
Tony Gomez - Manager, Violence & Injury Prevention, Public Health - Seattle & King County said that at LakeSafe Confluence 2026 on May 15. And then he paused, let the room sit with it, and said: "So we know what's possible here."

Tony is finishing a 42-year career at Public Health - Seattle & King County at the end of June. He lifeguarded at Idylwood Beach in 1976 - the first year it was ever lifeguarded by Public Health - Seattle & King County. He has reviewed every single drowning case in King County for four decades. He was on a national media call with members of Congress the day before Confluence because of the work King County has built.

And he chose to spend his Friday evening at Lake Sammamish, in front of families and partners and youth volunteers, sharing the two most practical things any family can do before they go to the water this summer.

1. The 2026 Lifeguard Guide
Which beaches have lifeguards. When they open. Their hours. And which ones offer free swim lessons before the beach even opens for the season.

2. Reduced-price life jackets
Because financial barriers to safety are not acceptable. Information on how to access life jackets at reduced cost so every family can be equipped regardless of income.

And then in one of the most genuinely joyful moments of the entire evening Tony held up a modern, sleek life jacket and said: "Look how cool this is. Kelly Jiang's right. Safety is cool. I've been wearing it a lot this week."

The room laughed. And then they remembered exactly why they were there.

42 years. Every case. Every family. Every effort to get King County's drowning numbers back toward zero toward the standard that was set between 2008 and 2011, when three straight years passed without a single child drowning in King County.

That is the goal. Tony proved it is possible.

We are so honored, Tony. Thank you for everything you have given to this community. 💙

🔗 Full Confluence 2026 recap: https://lakesafeinitiative.org/lakesafe-confluence-2026/

Every Lake. Every Life. 🌊

05/28/2026

"As I review the tragic cases of drownings where they could be preventable, I always think about my family."
Gurman Kaur Water Safety Manager, Violence & Injury Prevention Unit, Public Health - Seattle & King County said that at LakeSafe Confluence 2026 on May 15 at Lake Sammamish State Park.

She reviews the medical examiner cases. The real ones. The families who went to the water and did not come home. And when she sits with those cases looking for the pattern, looking for the gap, looking for the thing that could have changed the outcome she thinks about her own family.

That is what prevention work looks like from the inside. Not a spreadsheet. Not a policy brief. A person who carries the weight of preventable loss into every conversation she has, every event she attends, every recommendation she makes.

And her recommendation the one thing she wanted every family in that room to carry into summer was this:
Swimming is a life skill. And we should all learn how to swim. Children and adults alike.

Not just kids. Adults too. Because drowning does not check whether you are a parent, a grandparent, a strong outdoor person who has spent decades near the water. It checks whether you can stay afloat when conditions change. And if you cannot — if the adult in the group cannot the people who love you are in danger of trying to save you.

Gurman has been one of LakeSafe's most foundational partners from the very beginning. She and Tony Gomez from Public Health - Seattle & King County have brought the clinical and epidemiological weight of real drowning data to everything LakeSafe has built. The fact that King County went three consecutive years without a single child drowning that Gurman named at Confluence is the proof that prevention works when communities commit to it.

This summer, if there is one action your family can take before you go to the lake sign up for swim lessons. For the kids. For the adults who never learned. For the grandparent who has been near water their whole life but never actually learned to swim.

The YMCA/Sammamish Community and Aquatic Center committed free swim lessons for every child who needs them at Confluence 2026. That commitment starts now.

Thank you, Gurman for the data, for the weight you carry, and for bringing both to the lake on May 15. 💙

🔗 Full Confluence 2026 recap: https://lakesafeinitiative.org/lakesafe-confluence-2026/

🔗 Free swim lessons - YMCA of Greater Seattle: https://www.seattleymca.org

Every Lake. Every Life. 🌊

05/27/2026

"I hope someday our emergency responders will not have to make a run to the lake to save somebody's life."

Deputy Mayor Debbie Treen - Sammamish City Council said that at LakeSafe Confluence 2026 on May 15 at Lake Sammamish State Park.

She came that evening to support the initiative. And what she chose to say was this:
"We all have other things to do on a Friday night. And clearly, you've been inspired to step up and show your caring for the community for people who enjoy the lake, for people who enjoy all of our parks and the activities we have in the summer."

She looked at a room full of partner organizations, elected officials, public health leaders, emergency responders, families, and 25+ youth volunteers who had given their Friday evening to stand at that lake and she acknowledged exactly what that means. That showing up is itself an act of community love.
And then she said the one sentence that is the entire reason LakeSafe exists:

"I hope someday our emergency responders will not have to make a run to the lake to save somebody's life."

Not a policy position. Not a data point. A hope. From the Deputy Mayor of the city that sits at the edge of Lake Sammamish whose residents gather at that water every summer weekend whose first responders have made those runs before and will again unless the prevention work in that room takes hold.

That hope is what every partner organization, every youth volunteer, every family who attended Confluence 2026 is carrying into this summer. It is what the commitments represent. It is what LakeSafe is building toward - one event, one partnership, one life jacket, one conversation at a time.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor Treen. For saying the thing that mattered most. 💙

🔗 Full Confluence 2026 recap: https://lakesafeinitiative.org/lakesafe-confluence-2026/

Every Lake. Every Life. 🌊